An Evans man was sentenced to prison Thursday after pleading guilty to vehicular homicide for a 2010 wreck that killed a Grovetown woman.

Daniel Edwin Morales, 40, pled guilty to first degree vehicular homicide related to reckless driving and serious injury by vehicle in connection to the November 2010 wreck in which Phyllis Autry, 54, died and her husband, Paul Autry, was seriously injured.

The cookout, announced Thursday morning, will be held June 8 behind the Columbia County Library in Evans and is open to the public. Hamburger or hot dog lunches will be available for $5, and additional donations will be encouraged for the Marshall family.

An inmate at the Columbia County Detention Center was charged Tuesday for assaulting a jailer.

Dennis Joe Tilley, 23, of Grovetown, was charged with willful obstruction of a law enforcement officer after he lunged at and punched a deputy jailer when told to pack his property and move to a different section of the jail, according to a Columbia County Sheriff’s Office report.

Columbia County commissioners approved a more than $7 million bid Tuesday to build a new exhibition hall in the Gateway shopping center near Grovetown. Augusta-based McKnight Construction Co. won the nearly $7.3 million project to build the multi-purpose exhibition hall that also will house a Family Y facility. Construction should start during the first week of June and is scheduled to be completed by early 2013, said county Construction and Maintenance Services Director Matt Schlachter.

After a year on hold, the Thunder Over Augusta Armed Forces Day tribute is coming to Evans.

Established in 2009 as a way to honor members of the armed forces, the event formerly took place in downtown Augusta. Last year’s Thunder event was cancelled when construction precluded the use of Reynolds Street. This year the event will take place from 2-10 p.m. Saturday at Evans Towne Center Park. Admission is free.

Don MacNeil, one of the event organizers, said the the new Columbia County venue made it possible to bring the event back.

Eight schools, including two in Columbia County, were named today as recipients of educational grants offered by SRS contractor Savannah River Remediation to recognize and support excellence in teaching.

Two Columbia County teens told authorities late Saturday that they were robbed at gunpoint near a Martinez convenience store.

The 17-year-olds said that as they walked to the Circle K gas station on Old Evans Road just after 11 p.m. two men approached them. The robbers pointed a chrome handgun at the teens and demanded their possessions.

When one of the teens said his pockets were empty, the man told him to run away, which he did.